My Great Haul - OT

I shopped a few garage sales this weekend and did exceptionally well.
Check out the list of purchase - 49 items - then try to guess how much I
spent.
Reply with your guess before checking my figure below:


Two down comforters, one brand new, one slightly used
Two 100% cotton duvet covers, both brand new
Over-the-door hanging metal rack with six shelves, like new
Hanging closet shoe storage, space for 12 pairs, brand new
Two coffee mugs
Medium size bamboo basket, brand new
Medium glass storage jar, brand new
"The Corn is Green" movie with Bette Davis, like new
David Selznik's "Since You Went Away" movie, like new
"Total Control" by David Baldacci (paperback)
"Valley of Silence" 5-CD AudioBook, like new (for Dave's blind Aunt Toni)
Pure silk dinner/party dress, new with tag
Two 2-piece 100% rayon summer dresses, like new
3 pairs blue jeans, like new
2 pair khaki pants, like new
1 pair stretch knit gym pants
2 pairs lightweight cotton pedal-pushers, like new
7 pairs cotton shorts, all but one new or like new
2-piece summer shorts/blouse set, 100% cotton, like new
Pure silk copper-colored blouse, flawless
Wool cardigan sweater with pockets, like new
4 cotton knit blouses, like new
Pure rayon blouse
Men's 100% cotton Western shirt, like new (for Dave)
Two cotton knit men's shirts (for Dave)
Women's 100% cotton Western shirt, like new
100% cotton flannel winter nightgown
100% cotton seersucker housedress
Fleece jacket, snowflake pattern
Crocheted black handbag
Denim handbag

49 items....not a lot of money....

well worth the time....

....feeling somewhat guilty for getting this much stuff for so little....

....people don't realize the value of their cast-offs?

Well, how much was it all, already???

Too bad I found nothing for the cats... There was a nice large litterbox,
but it didn't have a handle on top....

Any one of at least a dozen of the items above would have cost more than the
total amount I spent on them all:

$38.

Thirty-eight dollars!!

On Jun 12, 12:04*pm, "Pat" wrote:

$38.

Thirty-eight dollars!!


Bargains are always nice- I think my local clothes shop hates me
sometimes- they have loads of lovely stuff and I often go in, look at
things, hold them against myself etc and just when they think they
have a sale I put it back on the rail I know that a month or so later
when the new collections come in (And I have no problem with being a
collection or so behind) they'll all be in the sale and then I can
select some of them. My piece de resistance is a stunning charcoal
grey printed corduoy jacket that was £60 and I got it in the sales for
£7.50

But I'd say you did damn well there!

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

hopitus wrote
One of my fun outings is to spend the day hitting all three thrift
shops, all benefitting good causes.

I have to travel to Springfield - 60 miles away - to find more than one
thrift store in a town. And all of them around here regardless of which town
try to gouge shoppers. Many do not have dressing rooms. I shop them anyway
when I can, and a few months ago happened to find a really nice hunter green
flannel lined western canvas shirt for $1.25.

At the yard sales, most people are fine with you going in to try stuff on. I
tried on most of the clothes I bought this time. Actually, the only clothes
I don't get for dirt cheap at garage sales or thrift stores are underwear
and socks, and shoes sometimes. And maybe the odd hat.

hopitus wrote:

Your bargains are admirable. I don't stop at garage sales because I do
much better at my
local thrift shops, where I can try on expensive shoes (name brand
sneaks costing over
a hundred, for example) for hours without any disappointed looks that
you get from the
garage sale givers. My friends all love garage sales and good for
them....and you. One of
my fun outings is to spend the day hitting all three thrift shops, all
benefitting good causes.
I don't care in the least if the stuff I buy or try on is from someone
who died, LOL.

I don't mind second-hand furniture and appliances - I just have a weird
prejudice against clothing someone else has worn before! I think it's
because my Mom was on a tight budget, didn't have much time to sew, and
saw nothing wrong with buying used clothing that had been worn by larger
classmates of mine. (If she'd bought it at a thrift store, it might
have been okay, but clothes everyone RECOGNIZED as having belonged to
someone else?) Unfortunately, I was in public grade school long before
the jeans-and-T-shirt days. Little girls wore dresses to school (and
not uniforms unless you went to Catholic school).

On Jun 12, 12:38*pm, hopitus wrote:
my fun outings is to spend the day hitting all three thrift shops, all
benefitting good causes.

I assume "thrift shops" are what we in the UK call "charity shops"
i.e. they raise money for a good cause- my mum after my dad died
volunteered to work in a charity shop run to raise money for the local
hospice and she did that until 5-6 weeks before she died. I got loads
of stuff from her because if the volunteers were sorting out donations
and saw anything they liked- they simply paid for it....alas you have
to remember this is my mum.....she'd regularly present ,me with
something ghastly saying "I thought this would do for you" and somehow
I'd end up giving her the couple of quid she'd paid for it but back
then I wasn't making a lot of money so I had to put up with it- they
were mostly stuff I could wear for work like blouses and plain skirts
and jackets anyway...the thought mum would have given me something
pretty to wear is very unthinkable....

It left me with a dislike of charity shops until the last couple of
years ie.. round about the time I was sheltering from the rain in the
Scope shop at Lewisham and found 2 blouses that I knew for a fact
(Because I'd seen them and coveted them already in Evans) were £20
each and they wanted a fiver each! That shop has since yielded
several other bargains

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

On 6/12/2011 6:48 PM, Lesley Madigan wrote:
On Jun 12, 12:38 pm, wrote:
my fun outings is to spend the day hitting all three thrift shops, all
benefitting good causes.

I assume "thrift shops" are what we in the UK call "charity shops"
i.e. they raise money for a good cause- my mum after my dad died
volunteered to work in a charity shop run to raise money for the local
hospice and she did that until 5-6 weeks before she died. I got loads
of stuff from her because if the volunteers were sorting out donations
and saw anything they liked- they simply paid for it....alas you have
to remember this is my mum.....she'd regularly present ,me with
something ghastly saying "I thought this would do for you" and somehow
I'd end up giving her the couple of quid she'd paid for it but back
then I wasn't making a lot of money so I had to put up with it- they
were mostly stuff I could wear for work like blouses and plain skirts
and jackets anyway...the thought mum would have given me something
pretty to wear is very unthinkable....

It left me with a dislike of charity shops until the last couple of
years ie.. round about the time I was sheltering from the rain in the
Scope shop at Lewisham and found 2 blouses that I knew for a fact
(Because I'd seen them and coveted them already in Evans) were £20
each and they wanted a fiver each! That shop has since yielded
several other bargains

I'm a great fan of thrift shops, and have gotten some great bargains. As
you say, they usually accept donations to sell to raise money for a good
cause. We also have a small regional chain that calls itself a 'Thrift
Boutique' which is a business that sells off mostly brand new discards,
probably from US businesses, to judge by the brand names. One of our
clothing chain used a local branch as the store they sent almost all
their unsold clothing from the entire region to sell off cheap, cheap,
cheap. Both of those are also good places to shop.

I used to avoid buying shoes, thinking that they'd be 'broken in' to
someone else's feet, but I've noticed that they sometimes have ones that
don't appear to have been worn at all - for $5!!
--
Cheryl P.

Pat wrote:
I shopped a few garage sales this weekend and did exceptionally well.
Check out the list of purchase - 49 items - then try to guess how much I
spent.
Reply with your guess before checking my figure below:


Two down comforters, one brand new, one slightly used
Two 100% cotton duvet covers, both brand new
Over-the-door hanging metal rack with six shelves, like new
Hanging closet shoe storage, space for 12 pairs, brand new
Two coffee mugs
Medium size bamboo basket, brand new
Medium glass storage jar, brand new
"The Corn is Green" movie with Bette Davis, like new
David Selznik's "Since You Went Away" movie, like new
"Total Control" by David Baldacci (paperback)
"Valley of Silence" 5-CD AudioBook, like new (for Dave's blind Aunt Toni)
Pure silk dinner/party dress, new with tag
Two 2-piece 100% rayon summer dresses, like new
3 pairs blue jeans, like new
2 pair khaki pants, like new
1 pair stretch knit gym pants
2 pairs lightweight cotton pedal-pushers, like new
7 pairs cotton shorts, all but one new or like new
2-piece summer shorts/blouse set, 100% cotton, like new
Pure silk copper-colored blouse, flawless
Wool cardigan sweater with pockets, like new
4 cotton knit blouses, like new
Pure rayon blouse
Men's 100% cotton Western shirt, like new (for Dave)
Two cotton knit men's shirts (for Dave)
Women's 100% cotton Western shirt, like new
100% cotton flannel winter nightgown
100% cotton seersucker housedress
Fleece jacket, snowflake pattern
Crocheted black handbag
Denim handbag

49 items....not a lot of money....

well worth the time....

...feeling somewhat guilty for getting this much stuff for so little....

...people don't realize the value of their cast-offs?

Well, how much was it all, already???

Too bad I found nothing for the cats... There was a nice large litterbox,
but it didn't have a handle on top....

Any one of at least a dozen of the items above would have cost more than the
total amount I spent on them all:

$38.

Thirty-eight dollars!!


UNBELIEVABLE!!! MLB

Pat wrote:

I shopped a few garage sales this weekend and did exceptionally well.
Check out the list of purchase - 49 items - then try to guess how much I
spent.
Reply with your guess before checking my figure below:

[snip list]

Any one of at least a dozen of the items above would have cost more than the
total amount I spent on them all:

Thirty-eight dollars!!

That's fabulous! Not only did you hit the jackpot, bargain-wise, but
participating in things like yard sales, donating items to thrift stores,
or freecycle, etc, means that perfectly good stuff isn't being thrown
out to rot in some landfill. Good going! I particularly envy the copper
silk blouse.

Joyce

--
I'm in favor of animal liberation. Why? Because I'm an animal.
-- Edward Abbey

I just found two more cotton blouses that should have been included in the
original list! They were in a different part of the house.

So make that 51 items instead of 49.

On Jun 12, 2:04*pm, "Pat" wrote:
snipped

...people don't realize the value of their cast-offs?

snipped

I think people definitely *realize* the value of their cast-offs. They
obviously know
what they paid for high-end clothing, etc. This is just my opinion/
rant, having just
had a garage sale a month ago.

The object of a garage sale( or ours anyway) is 1) Get rid of excess
stuff and (2)
Make a little $$$ in the process. My stuff was smothering me. After
watching
an episode or two of "Hoarders", I got real about it. My house was
nothing like
"Hoarders" of course, but it's a small house and there is only a
finite amount of
stuff you can keep accumulating.

How many clothes did I really need? I don't work. Social functions
that require
formal wear are pretty much just a couple of Christmas parties a year.
I have
a washer and dryer. But I had two closets so packed with clothes they
couldn't
hang freely without wrinkling. Many didn't fit.

I had boxes and boxes of my grandmother's, and father's stuff. I
didn't need any of
it but felt too guilty to get rid of it. Then I realized.....what was
*I* keeping it for?
To burden my kids with a bunch of crap *they* would feel too guilty to
get rid of?

When I looked at an object, if it made me sad, I got rid of it. In
fact, if it made
me feel anything but happy, out it went. If I hadn't read it/listened
to it/worn it/
cooked with it/ in two years, out it went. Furniture that really had
no purpose went.
I had a free-for-all event for kids and family members before the Big
Sale.

I still stop at garage sales often, and even buy clothes on e-bay. (I
am a weird size
that's hard to find in stores). I love the idea of recycling, and I
would never throw away
*anyting* that someone else can use. But my new policy is: When a new
article
of clothing comes into the house, a piece of clothing in the closet
has to go. If I
buy something non-consumable, something of equal mass has to go.

I love the end result. I'm happier, the house is *much* easier to keep
tidy, and choosing
something to wear is far easier. I don't have a hundred pieces of
Gladware come down
on my head when I open a cabinet. Now I actually know where everything
is when I need
it!

I organized all my photos, and for the things that were really
sentimental to me, I bought
"bankers boxes", labeled them, and stacked them in the closet. When it
was all said and
done, there really wasn't that much that I found I loved so dearly I
couldn't part with.

Sorry for the long rant to a simple question. You did good with your
purchases! Sounds like
you got some very high-end stuff, but unless you haggled the owners to
death, stop
feeling guilty! They were probably people who just wanted the stuff
gone.
Look at the "Storage Unit" business -- it is *booming*. Makes
you wonder about all of us and our "stuff".

Sherry